A place for a tired old woman to try to figure things out so that the world makes a bit of sense.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Out From Under A Rock

(Click on image to enlarge and then return.)

Actually, the title for this post is not very accurate. The critters living under rocks and skitter away when the rock is moved fulfill a useful function in the biosphere. The critters David Horsey references in this column do not.

Nearly as soon as I heard about the bombings on Monday, I was certain that somewhere in the nutty right-wing blogosphere someone was already concocting a storyline that would blame the crime on President Obama and the federal government. Alex Jones came through with impressive rapidity.

Jones runs a radio show from Austin, Texas. He describes himself as a libertarian and an “aggressive constitutionalist.” The Southern Poverty Law Center says he has stirred up racial animus “to appeal to the fears of the antigovernment Patriot movement.” He certainly appeals to fear. Jones asserts that both the Oklahoma City bombing and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were perpetrated by the U.S. government as part of a scheme to promote a New World Order through “exploitable hysteria.”

So it is no surprise that he is now pushing the idea that the Boston bombings were the nefarious handiwork of federal agents. ...

Jones is asking Americans to believe that their own government is responsible for all of the worst terrorist attacks in the country’s history and that the motivation for the latest one is a desire to grope sports fans. All of this is, of course, total ping-pong-balls-for-brains nonsense. It would be laughable if it were not for the fact that this conspiracy kook claims 2 million radio listeners and more online followers than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined.

Jones is a purveyor of the neo-Confederate brand of “patriotism” that has gained currency on the far starboard side of American politics. I do not think he should shut up or be shut down; he has the same 1st Amendment rights as I do. But he deserves to be exposed for what he is: a delusional, self-promoting bully who is slandering the very people who are right now doing the truly patriotic work of bringing the Boston bombers to justice. [Emphasis added]

To be fair, people like Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh find it easier to garner an audience when the press stumbles and bumbles as it has from the very start of this horrendous event. Speculation, baseless assertions, flat-out wrong assumptions kept pouring out from all of the MSM outlets, often by way of streaming tweets. Yes, tweets. One wag at Eschaton referred to the "twitterfication" of the news. And,, several days later, the "news" still keeps pouring out in that fashion.

And we haven't even had the blasts from the Religious Reich now that we know the suspected perpetrators are Chechnyans, i.e. Mooslims.

And we haven't heard yet what our federal government has in store for us after all of the suspects, however many there may be, are captured/killed.